Abstract
The nature of construction work processes allow crews and workers to follow their own practices in how they plan, organise and coordinate work. However, there is little research into the nature of crew work practices. This paper aims to unveil the influence of onsite crew work practices on productivity. An exploratory case study investigated work practices on a residential project involving two separate crews (of 18 and 23 workers) engaged in rebar placement for 112 columns each, which included a high-performing and an average-performing crew. A triangulated mixed methods approach to data gathering utilised site observations, individual and group interviews, and time measured work studies, to assess productivity of the crews. The findings indicate that the high-performing crew achieved 44% higher productivity than the average-performing crew and this manifested across specific tasks including rebar cutting, bending, stirrup fabrication and tieing. Five broad work practices were observed to significantly influence the above productivity differences: work preparation and execution strategy; group formation and stability; avoiding duplication of tasks; crew social cohesion; and internal and external leadership practices. These five practices are proposed as dimensions that can be used to measure crew productivity in ongoing research. In-depth understanding of crew based work practices will enable training of foremen and work crews in such practices to systematically develop high-performing crews.
Highlights
Productivity is defined as the relationship between output produced and one or more of the inputs used in the production process (National Research Council 1979)
The exploratory case study on a residential project compared a high-performing with an average-performing crew, in unveiling the influence of crew work practices on productivity
It was found that work practices considerably influenced the productivity of each crews, as most other project and activityspecific variables were relatively controlled by the virtue of the chosen research method
Summary
Productivity is defined as the relationship between output produced and one or more of the inputs used in the production process (National Research Council 1979). Sluggish productivity growth is apparent in the construction industry compared to other industries such as the manufacturing and services sectors, over the past two decades (McKinsey Global Institute, 2017, Caldas et al, 2014). Practitioners believe that construction costs and schedules can be reduced by 15%, by boosting productivity, construction labour productivity (CLP) (McKinsey Global Institute, 2017). This is so important because, in labour-intensive building construction projects, site labour can consume 30-50% of project costs, demonstrating the impact of CLP on the industry (Harmon and Cole, 2006). There is a fundamental need to better understand the operations of work crews as distinct from purely keeping them busy (Ballard et al, 2003)
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